Bulding a better question in "Open for Questions"

I'm in the middle of perusing the new White House program to connect with the public. "Open for Questions" allows people to write their own questions for the president and vote on questions submitted by other participants. The most popular questions will be answered by the president in a virtual town hall.

There is a lot that I like about the idea. I am especially jazzed by the intrinsic value of going through the process of composing a question as well as thinking about and evaluating the questions of others.

A survey of the questions, however, dampened my spirits. Lots were not even questions, some were staggering under the weight of ideological baggage, some were concise but glib and most were rambling and hard to understand. This isn't surprising. An excellent analysis by some DAWG (Debate Authors Working Group) affiliates of the Youtube debates found similarly discouraging results from the last attempt to directly involve the public in deliberation.

Here's what's missing--when designing these sort of deliberative forums, one should try to maximize the quality of the interaction. Voting on questions does this in a crude sort of way, but it doesn't assist one through the process of question formulation. One way to give people tools to ask a good question.

Yesterday I joked about members of Congress making rookie debate mistakes in their cross-examination, but it highlights that a good question is hard to ask. There are two strategies I use when teaching inexperienced debaters to formulate questions with particular goals in mind--forms and checklists. Both are used mainly for practice purposes, as exercises that make students self-consciously focus and develop these skills so that they can put them into practice without reflection in a debate (if you are interested in examples of these sorts of forms and checklists for inexperienced debaters, I have included a handful at the end of the post).

For something like "Open for Questions," we first need to think about what makes for a thoughtful question that contributes to the national discussion, then how to structure the submission process so that one is prompted to engage in thought-exercises that result both in better thinking and better question composition. We can isolate four considerations that make for a good question in the context of public deliberation.

Relevance: The "Open for Questions" form has a minimal check on relevance in the form of 1) a clear statement of topic and 2) a tool to "file" the question under one of 11 subheads. However, many of the proposed questions are still ending up as an unwieldy economic gumbo mixing taxes, employment, the stock market, credit, debt and deficit. The submission process should help a participant think about the relationship of their general political concerns to the specific circumstances at hand.

Reflexivity: A good question is reflexive, that is, it comes from a questioner who is conscious about her own role in the discussion. This is what differentiates a question from a demand--a question is bidirectional while a demand is unidirectional. It should include a reflection upon the who the questioner is and what is motivating their concern, if this sort of outreach is succeed in shining a light on the day to day lived experience of main street.

Reasoning: Many questions are derailed by too many unspoken premises that circulate in ideological echo chambers. A good question spells out the causal connections one is making in going from one's evidence to one's conclusion.

Clarity (I really wanted a fourth R, but failed): The first three components of a good question seem to reward wordiness. Certainly I'm guilty of being longwinded. A prompt that asks one to take the steps of relevance, reflexivity and reasoning and then boil them down to a single easy to understand sentence may help balance robust thought with clear, unambiguous questioning.

If we can utilize a form that leads one to develop each aspect of the questioning process, we will come out with a question that has a detailed preamble but results in a concise question.

Finally, I'll take a stab at explaining what the form would look like (but these, keep in mind, are off the hip thoughts that can definitely be improved upon):

(Reflexivity/relevance) Who are you and how has the economic crisis affected your life? [text box]

(Reasoning) What would you like to better understand in order to make good decisions for your future and that of your family, friends and community?

What do you think the goals of economic recovery should be? How can the administration help to achieve these goals?

What tools and resources would you like to help build a secure economic future?

How can the administration respond to your particular needs?

[one additional benefit of writing out specific questions is that, at a meta-level, they function as examples of what a good question looks like]

(Clarity) Here I think you have two options. Either you can design the form so that each component is combined to make a singular question (I am Cate Morrison, a part-time university instructor. In a time of decreased revenues to public universities, I am worried about losing my job. How will your economic recovery plan help universities that have lost money from either or both decreased state finding and contracting endowments?) OR you can just have the general "what is your question" box only at the end of these preliminary questions (you might even have a character limit to encourage perspicuity). Either way, we will have "gone along a way" with the question (and with our thoughts) by the time we finally ask.

This can be supplemented with a checklist of the qualities of a good question. Gordon Mitchell taught us grad students that a good questions are like boats--they have a destination, an engine, a rudder...and some other stuff I forgot (sorry Gordo!). Point being, you can always remind people that a good question is concise, focused, encourages cooperation, isn't phrased in the negative...etc etc.

Relevance, reflexivity and reasoning can be promoted using prompts in the question form itself, though if one wishes to maintain more flexibility for the questioner, responding to these prompts can be left optional. The idea is not to force someone to respond in a particular way, but rather to encourage and give them the tools to express themselves effectively. You want to set each and every questioner up for success even if their question is not chosen.

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Debate stuff

Form
1) Isolate an argument in your opponent's speech as a platform for your question (Ex. "In your last speech, you argued that," "you read a piece of evidence suggesting that..."), identify and question only one of the following: the claim, the evidence, the warrant, or the credibility of that argument.

2) Identify an assumption that your opponent is making (Ex: military deterrence is necessary to preserve peace) then lead them to explain or confirm that assumption (Ex. "Why would an overstretched military decrease national security?" or "You claim that a missile defense system would create stability in the Asia/Pacific region. Explain how that works")

3) Identify a particular explanation or reason your opponent is using to make their argument. Ask them to confirm this explanation. Then apply this explanation to another situation, and ask your opponent to reconfirm ("You contend that Americans must make sacrifices during a crisis, right? [yes] So, should a family sacrifice doctors visits for their children?")

Checklist
*Does the answer to this question impact an important part of the debate (is it relevant)?
*Do I need to include any background information in order to give a context for this question?
*Is the question direct and easy to understand?
*How will I use the answer to this question in my subsequent arguments?